The generation of "unNatural" products: Synthetic biology meets synthetic chemistry

• Published in: Natural product reports 2012-01, Vol.29 (8), p.87-889
• Main Authors: Goss, Rebecca J. M, Shankar, Sreejith, Fayad, Antoine Abou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological Products - chemical synthesis; Biological Products - chemistry
• ISSN: 0265-0568; 1460-4752
• DOI: 10.1039/c2np00001f

Covering: 2005 to 2012 Natural product analogue generation is important, providing tools for chemical biology, enabling structure activity relationship determination and insight into the way in which natural products interact with their target biomolecules. The generation of analogues is also often necessary in order to improve bioavailability and to fine tune compounds' activity. This review provides an overview of the catalogue of approaches available for accessing series of analogues. Over the last few years there have been major advances in genome sequencing and the development of tools for biosynthetic pathway engineering; it is therefore becoming increasingly easy to combine molecular biology and synthetic organic chemistry in order to enable expeditious access to series of natural products. This review outlines the various ways of combining biology and chemistry that have been applied to analogue generation, drawing upon a series of examples to illustrate each approach. Natural product analogue generation provides tools for chemical biology, enables structure activity relationship determination and provides insight into the way in which natural products interact with their target biomolecules. This review outlines the various ways of combining biology and chemistry to enable expeditious access to series of analogues.